


Absolution

by RossettiMucha



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Reunion Fic, post-Kyiv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8262476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RossettiMucha/pseuds/RossettiMucha
Summary: 'When Bernie finally returned to Holby, she didn't tell Serena.'Bernie's back from Kyiv - and Serena can't even look at her. Can they ever reclaim the relationship they had before she left?





	

When Bernie finally returned to Holby, she didn’t tell Serena.

She wasn’t quite sure why she’d made a decision she knew would blow up in her face – proverbially speaking only, on this occasion – though she thought it might have had something to do with shame. Shame at herself - at her own weakness and cowardice, her easy ability to cut and run and leave her mess behind her – and, in her moments of self-righteous bitterness, at Serena too. Serena who just couldn’t tap into that ‘Great British Reserve’ she professed to find so charming, who had to expose herself so openly, raw and bleeding, for the whole world to see - and Bernie along with her.

She resolutely ignored the voice in the back of her mind that said she was envious of Serena’s ability to express emotion uninhibited – _no need to go down that road again_ – but God, if only she could be brave. How her life could be. She had never been brave in the way that Serena had. Bernie had, at intervals, been foolish, foolhardy, and fearless; but never brave. Never had she acknowledged fear and turned to face it, head on. So instead of doing the rational, mature thing and extending Serena the professional courtesy of an email – a heads up between work colleagues, at the very least – she snuck into their shared office, coffee cup in hand, with the vague hope that – what? That Serena would breach the gap? That she’d be the one, after all Bernie had done – after Bernie had made her feel so ashamed of the very openness she was now counting on - to extend the hand of friendship and welcome the prodigal surgeon back with open arms?

She was nothing if not a glutton for punishment. 

//

When, at the end of a long and trying shift, Serena staggered her way into her office – and she thought of it as ‘hers’ now, not theirs, anymore – to see a sheepish looking Bernie Wolfe wringing her hands and swinging nervously on the one chair formerly designated as hers, she thought for a moment that she might faint. Her next thought, however petulant or irrational, was that this Bernie – the one not 3 meters away from her – was ruining everything. That she shouldn’t be sitting in that chair, where she’d sat when she was a different Bernie, because she was corrupting it; that the last time she’d been on the other side of that desk, Serena’s heart had felt swollen and full, and she’d been smiling at Bernie’s deadpan wit, half blinded by love. There’d been so much potential then – an infinite array of exciting possibilities. Now, her chest felt hollow – feeling defined by its absence, rather than its excess. She was seized, suddenly and violently, by the urge to scream until her voice shattered. 

Instead, she draped professionalism about her like a shroud.

“Ms Wolfe.” Serena greeted her as coldly as she could manage, though her voice sounded thick and far away even to her own ears. 

Bernie flinched at her tone, but her gaze didn’t waver from what Serena could only assume was a particularly fascinating patch of carpet. 

“Hello, Serena.”

A muted reply, Serena thought. Good. If Bernie had tried to brazen her way through this encounter, she might have thrown the computer monitor at her head. She still wasn’t entirely sure that she wouldn’t.

She realised, distantly, that she was trembling, though whether it was with shock or rage, she was unsure. She fought desperately to remember who she was: Serena Campbell, warm and brilliant with a core of steel, who could stare down a board of directors without blinking. Who could pull herself from the burning rubble of her marriage, and reshape into something stronger and better and infinitely more powerful. She was not ashamed of her ability to nurture and love, and she was not afraid of Bernie Wolfe. 

(She resolutely ignored the pounding of her own heart.)

They stared at each other in silence, across a void that had never existed before. 

“You dyed your hair.” It fell from her mouth in an expulsion of bitter air, and dropped between them, flat and empty. Lacking. Trite. Too casual. Too distant. Embarrassingly meaningless, it did nothing to break the silence, but served only to make her more conscious of all that she didn’t say: you left me – why did you go - who do you think you are - I missed you - I hate you – you were everything - I loved you. 

Bernie nodded, eyes still downcast like a penitent awaiting a blow or absolution, strung taut and trembling. Serena made no move to grant her either.

The silence became stifling. 

Eventually Serena moved towards her own desk, as quickly as she could manage without running - but it was like wading through silt. Had her limbs always been this heavy? Her arms felt too long, as though they’d been weighted and stretched, and they hung, limp and awkward, by her sides. 

The noise of the ward was distorted and distant over the throbbing of the blood in her ears. 

How was she supposed to react? She had thought that she’d prepared for every eventuality – for Bernie to come home early, begging for forgiveness; for her to communicate through Hansen that she planned to stay in Kyiv permanently because she’d met someone out there, tall beautiful and on the right side of 40; for her to transfer back to Keller and never visit AAU again, while Serena continued to cast longing looks at her in the queue in Pulses. Never had she considered that Bernie might just show up without a word, coffee in hand, as though no time had passed at all – as though they were the same as they had always been. It was… anti-climactic. False and hollow and devoid of meaning. She felt somehow cheated; every emotion she had experienced since their first kiss – the confusion, the excitement, the roiling torment – had all been so fresh and sharp and new, and painful in the very best of ways. How dare Bernie take that from her? When it was the only thing she had left of them - that passion of feeling. 

Too furious to acknowledge her old – _new?_ – colleague, and overly-conscious of the world beyond their dividing wall, Serena did the only thing she could do; ignored Bernie entirely, and started on her paper work. 

//

When she heard Serena move away from the door at last, Bernie had felt sure that this was it – the precipice on which her future balanced was contained in that exact moment. She counted out twenty heart beats, eyes on the ground – _can’t even look at her, you coward_ – before she realised that Serena wasn’t coming anywhere near her. 

Her head jerked up abruptly.

To all intents and purposes, Serena looked the same as she always did; as she always had, when Bernie was here – before. She knew Serena must feel her eyes on her – must be as conscious of Bernie’s presence as Bernie was of hers – but she gave no sign of it, resolutely focussed on the file in front of her. It was only the tightening of the lines around her mouth – the ones Bernie loved so much because they made her look like she was smiling, even when she wasn’t – that suggested something was amiss.

Of course, once she’d looked at Serena for the first time in months, Bernie couldn’t look away again. She tried to take everything in all at once: new shirt; hair a little longer; lip gloss all licked off over the course of a long shift; wearing the gold earrings instead of the silver, the same ones she’d been wearing when they – _don’t go there, Berenice. You can’t go there, anymore. You made sure of that yourself._

It was becoming too much – the stalemate, the silence. The way Serena hadn’t looked at her once since she’d sat down, when they used to glance up at each other so frequently, without thought. Friendly little affirmations, or knowing winks, or simply just to drink each other in when they thought the other wasn’t looking. She fought the urge to jump to her feet and run from the room. All of a sudden it seemed to her to be the most important thing in the world that she should get Serena Campbell to acknowledge her once more; and she was not above begging. _After all,_ a spiteful little voice reminded her. _Serena had._

“Please Serena. Please just… look at me.”

The cheap biro in Serena’s hand snapped, staining her fingers with ink. She turned her head slowly, dangerously, to face Bernie. “Was there something you needed, Ms Wolfe?”

Bernie swallowed. Had Serena always been this inscrutable? Even when they’d only bumped into each other in Pulses, before they had become anything more than passing acquaintances, she’d seemed open and easy to read, with free smiles and friendly eyes. She’d never held anything back from Bernie, for reasons Bernie was still at a loss to understand – she’d heard rumours about the formidable Ms Campbell, who got what she wanted at any cost, and held all but a select and privileged few at arm’s length – and yet all she had done, consistently, was pull Bernie closer and nurture her. Bernie had the sudden, painful realisation that she’d only ever returned that trust with evasion and half-truths; that Serena was only looking at her with the same guardedness that she had always used against Serena. She was conscious, for the first time, that she’d broken something irreparable between them, and it sickened her. She longed to look away again – to avoid that shuttered gaze, which before had only ever held open affection – but found that she could not.

“I was – Serena I –“ she paused again. What could she say? She could not explain the sickening ache of regret that had permeated her bones for the past three months whenever she had time to stop and think, or the pounding sense of self-recrimination that dogged her every hour of every day - which she didn’t really want to escape at all because she knew that it was all she deserved; the very least she deserved. She could never tell Serena how loving her was – how it felt like an anvil on her chest, red hot and restrictive, and how the pressure only increased when she looked at her so coldly now. How all she could think about in this moment was Serena’s eyes – how they had always been so expressive – warm and deep and soft, even when her voice had been hard and cruel. How well they had emoted her sense of betrayal when Bernie accepted the secondment, and haunted Bernie’s dreams for months afterwards. 

“You have such kind eyes.” Desperate, needy. Blurted to fill the silence. Wishful thinking now, really - she couldn’t tell if Serena’s eyes were kind or not, any more. She’d become too difficult to read. 

Serena’s lips twitched momentarily, as though she might have been contemplating a smile, though it would have been a twisted and cruel approximation of one.

“Is that all you have to say?” Her voice wobbled slightly, and Bernie thought she saw the first crack in her façade. 

“No! Serena I – I don’t know what to say!” Bernie felt her hands begin to flutter nervously and willed them still in her lap. “What _can_ I say?” 

There was a pause, and Serena looked at her with something akin to disappointment - as though she’d expected something more. “Nothing, Bernie. There’s nothing you can say.” 

Bernie could feel the panic rising within her, though she tried her best to tamp it down. She could stand anything from Serena but this awful, cold indifference. The world was beginning to fade into white noise, a high and incessant whine rattling from fingertips to skull. She managed to stagger up on weak legs, and prop herself on the edge of the filing cabinet for support as she half-extended a shaking hand towards Serena, before allowing it to fall by her side, uselessly. It suddenly occurred to her that maybe she couldn’t fix this.

“Serena? I’m sorry. I feel… awful, about… all of this.” She made no effort to keep the tremor from her voice. Perhaps it was time for total honesty. Perhaps it was the only thing that could save them.

Serena stared at her blankly for what seemed like a moment too long, until Bernie saw the exact moment that she shattered. 

//

Serena was on her feet and moving before she was really aware of it, hot tears of anger gathering in the back of her throat, choking her. 

“No - you don’t get to feel awful, Bernie! This was your choice. You had a _choice_.” She congratulated herself on the steadiness of her voice, on the awful, terrifying, momentary stillness of her mind - but all she could see was Bernie’s mouth twitching uselessly in front of her, weighted with words unsaid; and wasn’t it always that way? Wasn’t Bernie always choking on the truth, spitting out lies and broken promises instead, while Serena lapped them up because it was all that she could get, even though they’d already turned to ash and made her gag? 

Something about the nature of Bernie Wolfe – her evasiveness, or her willingness to leave everything she knew without explanation, or her stupid, beautiful, terrified face – touched a malicious bone in Serena. It occurred to her, quite unexpectedly, that she wanted to hurt Bernie with that which she feared the most – total, unbridled, emotional honesty.

“Do you know, I think I would have fallen to my knees for you in the middle of AAU if I’d thought, even for a moment, that it would make you stay?” She asked conversationally, as though commenting on nothing more banal than the weather forecast, though the mere memory of it made her stomach drop unpleasantly. 

Bernie made a sound that might have been a stifled sob.

Serena ignored it. “I just… couldn’t understand why you would run away from me – why you wouldn’t trust me, after – after everything we’ve been through together. For God’s sake Bernie, before I was anything else, I was your friend – we were at least that to each other. You needed me in that capacity, and I needed you, too – oh! So much more than you realised. I needed my friend, Bernie, I needed my friend to explain why she was just – just - _leaving_ me - but you were gone, and my friend was gone, because I was… _stupid_ enough to fall in love with you.” 

A miserable breath of a whined “Serena,” escaped from Bernie, around the hand she had pressed to her lips to stop them trembling. 

“ _No_ – don’t you dare. I’m speaking now. You had your say - you made your choices. Well I made choices too!” Serena felt her own mouth shape itself into a perverse sort of grin, and realised that she was hovering on the edge of a hysterical reaction. Her next words were crafted to twist the knife, voice soft and deadly calm. “There were others, you know. While you were gone. I never even bothered to learn their names, but God they were -” 

“ _Stop_ – oh! Please stop!” Bernie cast herself to her knees in front of Serena in anguish, clutching desperately at the loose material of her trousers. She tried to bury her face in fisted hands in search of darkness - merciful and still, if only for a moment - but Serena was faster, fingers winding into blonde curls tight enough to hurt, and pulling her head back, up, up, up, towards the light. 

“What Bernie, don’t you want to hear? Don’t you want to know what I did while you were gone?” Staccato breaths, weighted with unexpressed emotion. 

The sudden rush of power was exhilarating, after all these months of feeling so horribly, disgustingly helpless. How dare Bernie think that she had no right to speak her piece – how dare she treat her like a naïve child and then run from the office – from them - without allowing her the dignity of an explanation, or a debate or a _goodbye_ – 

“I wanted _you_!” It bursts from her without volition, and she feels Bernie’s head jerk in response. “You said that I didn’t know what I wanted, but I did! I do! And you didn’t even _ask_ \- you were out the damn door too fast! And do you know, right up until that moment, I still thought that I could fix it? I thought if I could just make you understand how I felt, that you would stay – with me. Silly, I know. Because then you left me standing there, in front of my staff, and I realised that it wasn’t about me at all, was it? It was about you. It was _always_ about you!”

Bernie was staring up at her through tears, those big brown eyes momentarily the only thing in the world Serena was aware of - until she was wrenching Bernie to her feet with a force that was almost shocking, her hand still fisted in Bernie’s hair. And then they were kissing, brutal and aggressive, teeth colliding messily and hard enough to hurt. Bernie was weeping in earnest now, apologies and promises sobbed between kisses, her tears mixing with Serena’s own. She hadn’t even realised that she’d been crying.

She was clutching at Bernie desperately – too desperately, she knew, short nails digging into her back and scrabbling for purchase where there was none to be found, sliding off the chiffon of her blouse – _she’s back – Bernie’s back, she’s come back and I love her and I hate her and I never want her to go I never want to let her go_ – and then she stopped thinking entirely, crushed under the pressure. She could only hold on as she fell into darkness, a world entirely of sensation - but still it was Bernie - always Bernie, everywhere at once. Consuming her. 

They sank to their knees together eventually, anger spent, and when Serena’s lips found the long line of Bernie’s throat - frighteningly vulnerable to her now - she treated it tenderly, soft kisses serving as a benediction. 

“I hate you, you know,” Serena tried half-heartedly, her forehead still pressed against Bernie’s.

She sensed, rather than saw, Bernie’s smile.

“No you don’t.”

“You’re right. I wish I could.” 

They were silent for a moment, Serena’s ink stained hand still wound in Bernie’s hair, colouring it blue with the heat of her palm.

“I missed you.” She meant it only as an expression of love, but Bernie still flinched.

“I’m sorry. I truly, truly am. I can only hope that you’ll forgive me for it, someday.”

Bernie sounded so earnest, in that moment, that a wry smile quirked Serena’s lips. _Impossible woman_. 

“I always forgive you everything, Bernie.”

“You shouldn’t.” 

“I know; and yet you’re always so glad to accept it when I do.” 

They pulled away from each other at last, Serena stroking the golden crown of Bernie’s head in silent apology. The sun had set beyond the hospital windows while they talked, and it was only the darkness of the office that made Serena, in that moment, brave enough to speak her mind.

“It will never be the same, you know.” 

Bernie squinted at her, eyes glinting in the half-light, and Serena could just about make out the way she set her jaw when she decided to be the one, this time, to take the plunge. 

“I know. But maybe it could be better.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not convinced that this is entirely in character - would Bernie ever do her best Heathcliff impression and fall to her knees in anguish? Would Serena do the complementary Cathy Earnshaw hair pulling? Probably not, I'm just a lover of the melodramatic.


End file.
